divergentfandomcom-20200223-history
Tobias Eaton
Tobias Eaton, more prominently known as Four because of his four fears, is one of the main characters in Divergent,'Insurgent, and Allegiant and is the son of Evelyn Johnson-Eaton and Marcus Eaton. Alongside Lauren (instructor of Dauntless-born initiates), he is the instructor of the transfer initiates. He becomes the love interest of Tris Prior later on in the first book of the trilogy. Biography Early life Tobias was born to Marcus and Evelyn Eaton in the Abnegation faction. His father was said to have noticed his Divergence at a young age and became observant of him since then. Evelyn supposedly died when Tobias was young, leaving Tobias alone with Marcus. Tobias became a victim to his father's cruelty. During his aptitude tests he got an Abnegation result, but chose Dauntless as his faction at the Choosing Ceremony to escape his father. During his initiation training, when he went through his fear landscape, it was discovered Tobias only had four fears, with the average being between ten and fifteen. As a result, his instructor, Amar, started calling him "Four." Tobias accepted it so he could escape his past. He finished first in his initiation class, and chose to work in the intelligence sector of Dauntless, but also decided to train transfer initiates. ''Divergent Four is first seen helping Tris get out of the net after she jumps through the hole into the Dauntless compound. After all the initiates have come in, he introduces himself as the instructor to the transfer initiates. Four supervises their training, showing them how to fight with weapons, as well as hand-to-hand combat. Tris' fellow initiates, Christina and Will, both comment that Four seems like someone to stay away from. Four tries to help Tris out with her combat abilities, though Tris is wary to trust him, initially. During Tris' first fight, against Peter, when Tris starts being beaten badly, she notices Four leaving the room. When she comments to him about this, he says it "wasn't something I wanted to watch," confusing her. Four is next seen when the initiates gather at the tracks to play a Dauntless game of capture the flag. On the train, Four and Dauntless leader Eric are the two captains under which initiates will be split up into two teams. Four surprises Tris, as well as the rest of the group, by choosing her as his first team member. Tris later notices that all the members Eric picked have bigger builds compared to Four's picks. Eventually, they come to the amusement park, and Four tells them to come up with a strategy before the other team picks their spot. While the other members start bickering about a strategy, Four notices Tris sneak off toward the ferris wheel. He follows her, and she says she's "seeking higher ground" to find the other team. Four climbs with her, and Tris later realizes he has a fear of heights. They're able to climb high enough to find the other team's flag, but on the way down, Tris loses her footing and is dangling in midair. Four climbs down and turns on the wheel, helping Tris ride down and safely land. They come back to the group, and Tris devises a strategy to go into two groups, with half distracting the team while the other gets the flag. The strategy works, and Four's team wins. Though Christina is the one who captures the flag, Four tells Tris "well done," acknowledging her role in their win. The next day, the initiates are shown how to throw knives by Four and Eric. After they start throwing, both Eric and Four notice that Tris' friend, Al, hasn't hit the target yet. Eric tells him to go get his knife when he misses again, but Al refuses because he's afraid of being hit by a stray knife thrown by the other initiates. Eric has them stop, and tells Al to stand in front of the target. Eric calls Four over, and tells Al to stand in front of the target while Four throws knives at him. If he flinches, he's out. Just as Four is getting ready to throw, Tris stops him and voluntarily takes Al's place. She manages to stay composed while Four throws the knives, believing he won't hit her. He throws a knife that nicks her ear, and she later calls him out for doing it on purpose. Four admits it, saying if he hadn't, Eric wouldn't have let her go. When she yells at him for "taunting" her, he angrily tells her that if he wanted to hurt her, he would've by now. He storms out before she can ask what he means. Tris is paired up against Molly, Peter's sidekick, in her following fight. She manages to knock Molly off her feet, and proceeds to repeatedly kick her while she's down, leaving Molly bloody and bruised. Four finally has to pull Tris away, telling her to stop since she won. Tris notices that Four is looking at her with shock. He tries to get her to calm down by walking away, but Tris insists that she's fine. During Visiting Day, Tris introduces Four to her mom, Natalie Prior. Natalie comments that Four looks familiar to her, though Four dismisses it, saying he doesn't care to be associated with Abnegation. During the second stage of initiation, Four supervises the initiates as they go through their fear simulations while under a serum. Four figures out that Tris is Divergent, and though she denies it, he tells her to find a way to conceal it or she could end up at the bottom of the chasm. Tris wonders if he's Divergent, as well. When rankings for stage two are posted, Tris finds herself ranked first. Soon after, she's attacked by Peter, Drew, and Al, when they try to throw her into the chasm. Four hears her screams and manages to stop them, severely injuring Drew while Peter and Al run away. Four brings Tris back to his room. Though he tells her to act scared so Peter and Drew won't attack her again, he is furious when Tris tells him they tried to assault her. He encourages her to humiliate them in some way. Al commits suicide soon after, ashamed of his actions & despondent over Tris refusing to forgive him. Tris tells Four she thinks it's her fault, but he thinks everybody could have done something different to prevent Al's death. Four shows the transfers the fear landscape room, where they'll try to conquer their fears as their final test. Tris later notices him going alone toward the room, and follows him. Four realizes she's following him, and reveals he wanted her to come so he could show her something. Tris goes through his fear landscape, and finds out his true identity. She protects him from Marcus when he shows up in his landscape, preventing him from hitting Tobias with a belt as he usually did. He's amazed afterwards by her actions, and credits her for helping him get through his fears. They later make their way next to the chasm, where Four shares with Tris his test results and how he chose not to be a leader because he didn't want to see his father again. They share their first kiss during this time. The next day, the initiates go through Lauren's fear landscapes as preparation for the final. But when Tris goes in, facing Lauren's fear of being kidnapped, the fear morphs into her own, and Tris freaks out. Tobias shuts down the simulation, and yells at her for being "pathetic." Tris hits him, and tells him off before running away. She goes to Erudite to visit her brother, Caleb, before being driven back to Dauntless compounds after getting caught. Eric reprimands her for leaving, but Tobias comes out, and the two come up with a story that Tris has a crush on Tobias, and he rejected her, so she ran off, upset. Eric buys it, and Tobias talks to Tris alone, who scolds him for yelling at her. Tobias insists he was trying to protect her so no one would know their relationship and accuse him of choosing favorites; Tris understands, and they reconcile. Tobias has Tris meet him later that night, and the two of them get onto the train. He brings her to Erudite headquarters, where he shows her that their lights are on throughout the night even though it's against city rules. Tris makes the connection between the lights and the recent articles Erudite have written, slandering Abnegation city leaders. She also figures out what Tobias has: Erudite are planning to use Dauntless to overthrow Abnegation and take over the government. Tobias doesn't know how, and Tris admits she doesn't know, either. On Initiation Day, Tris realizes Tobias is monitoring the initiates, but he can't see the simulations as Dauntless leaders can. After Tris goes through her test, Tobias brings her back to his room, where they start making out. Tris, though, pulls back and reveals to Tobias that he was in her fear landscape because she's afraid of being intimate with him, thinking he only wants her for her body. Tobias insists that's not what he thinks of her, and she says he's probably not going to be in her fear landscape anymore. At the dinner, Tris is ranked first, and she's accepted into Dauntless. Tobias comes up to congratulate her, and she kisses him, not caring what others think, but she pulls back, realizing how Erudite are going to use Dauntless, insisting she'll tell him later. Tris' assumption is proven correct, as Erudite activate a tracker serum put in every Dauntless member, making them sleepwalking soldiers, that night. Tris sees Tobias next when she gets onto the train, and is afraid she was wrong about him being Divergent, as well. He grabs her hand, though, revealing his Divergence to her. The two get down with the other soldiers at Abnegation, where the leaders are rounded up to be killed. At one point, Eric decides to shoot Four to get rid of his competition, thinking no one will notice, but Tris stops him, shooting him in the foot. She and Four run, but don't make it far because Tris is shot, and Tobias refuses to leave her. The two are brought before Jeanine Matthews, leader of the Erudite, who decides to use Tobias to test out her new simulation serum for Divergents, and leaving Tris to die since she's wounded. Tobias tries to attack Jeanine to prevent this, but fails and is dragged off by her guards. Tris is saved, and comes to Dauntless headquarters in order to shut down the simulation. She comes to the control room, where she finds Four under simulation monitoring the other Dauntless soldiers on the screen. The two of them start fighting against each other, until Tris manages to get Tobias' gun and points it at him. Not able to shoot him, she puts the gun in his hand and he points it at her head. However, her voice comes through to him, and he breaks out of the simulation. They shut down the Dauntless simulation, and run out, where Caleb and Marcus are waiting. Tris pushes Marcus away from Tobias when Marcus hugs him. She lets him know that she thinks Tobias has the right to shoot him, though she might do it herself. The four of them jump onto the train with Peter, who helped Tris get into the control room after she injured him, and they head towards Amity headquarters. Insurgent Four accompanies Tris to the Amity compound with Caleb, Peter, and Marcus. There these five and the surviving members of Abnegation stay with the Amity until they are eventually discovered by the Erudite and forced to run (Peter and Marcus were assumed to be dead by Tris and Four, as they had not joined Four, Tris, and Caleb as they fled, though Caleb and Tris' Abnegation friend, Susan escaped with them). It is when they catch a train car to head to the city that they meet up with the Factionless , and meet Four's mother Evelyn (much to the surprise of Beatrice). After spending a night there, Four and Tris journey to Candor Headquarters to attempt to ally with the Candor while Caleb and Susan stay behind to look for any Abnegation refugees with the Factionless. There he is put under the Truth Serum where he tells about Marcus (he is later teased by many of the Dauntless members), as well as revealing that he was planning to leave Dauntless after the most recent group of initiates, but stayed because of Tris, to which she is shocked since he had never told her. Later, when the Dauntless faction returns to their home, Tobias enters his Fear landscape again and later reveals to Tris that he still had four fears, but instead of shooting a woman, it was watching Tris die and unable to do anything to save her. Relationships Tris Prior (Girlfriend) '' '' In Divergent, Four first meets Tris, formerly known as Beatrice, when she is the first transfer initiate to jump off a building unknowingly into the net in the Dauntless entrance on the day of her Choosing Ceremony. He claims that even he wasn't the first jumper. When he saw her, he noticed her eyes were so stern, so insistent and said they were beautiful. It becomes evident very quickly that Four has some sort of feelings for Tris when he walks out of the training room when Tris is unfairly paired up to fight with fellow initiate Peter who is much stronger than her. In addition, on the night of the capture the flag game, Four accompanies Tris as she climbs up the ferris wheel so he can be sure that she is not hurt even though one of his only fears is heights. Four continually tries to help Tris through her Dauntless training, and she begins to develop feelings for him as they interact with each other. Eventually they become a couple, and Four is adamant that he will protect Tris no matter what the cost is to him. In Allegiant, the pair are still together, but argue throughout the book. Tobias learns that he isn't Divergent like Tris, which causes conflict between them. Towards the end, after everything's been resolved, Tobias returns to the compound, and along with Amar and Christina, they wondered where everyone was. When Cara approaches them, she has a troubled look on her face. Tobias asks her where Tris was, and she apologizes. Christina then asks her roughly what happened, and Cara explains that Tris went to the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb, survived the death serum, but was shot and didn't survive. Tobias believed she was lying, that it must have been a lie, because Tris was still alive, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed and her small body full of power and strength... He thought Tris was still alive, because she wouldn't leave him there alone, that she wouldn't go to the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb. But then he realized that, of course, Tris would go into the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb. And all Tobias was doing, was standing still. He felt that if he just was standing still, he can stop it from being true, he can pretend that everything is all right. And as Christina hunched over, unable to support her own grief, with Cara embracing her, all Tobias did was stand still. Evelyn Johnson-Eaton In Insurgent, it is revealed that Evelyn is Tobias' mother, who was supposed to be dead, is in fact alive and leading the Factionless. She faked her death, putting up a fake story about her dying during childbirth. Tobias was not happy to see her because she willingly left him with Marcus. Later in Insurgent it is revealed that Evelyn left because her other choice was exile because she had an affair with another man. Tobias' feelings toward her soften when he learns this and he starts to believe her, but Tris thinks she was a liar and is using Tobias, and threatens to tell him so. Marcus Eaton Tobias has an very strained relationship with his father Marcus, the leader of Abnegation, due to the physical beatings he endured . Physical and emotional torment continued throughout Tobias' childhood, with Marcus repeatedly saying, "this is for your own good" every beating. The result was that Tobias left Abnegation due to his abuse from his father, as revealed in Divergent. Tobias declined becoming a Dauntless leader because it would mean he would see his father more frequently. Tobias' relief is evident, whilst Marcus' rage hit a new high after his son left Abnegation, tarnishing his already blemished reputation. In Insurgent, Tobias humiliates Marcus in the Candor meeting room. Tobias publicly beats and whips Marcus in front the crowd of Dauntless, Amity, Abnegation, Candor and Erudite, after receiving taunting comments. Often, Tobias was called a "coward" after his revelation of being beaten by Marcus during the Candor Truth Serum questioning with Tris. Tobias later explains to Tris why he publicly beat Marcus, stating that he was sick of being jeered at by his fellow faction members, but most likely the truth is he wanted to be leader, which he becomes later in Insurgent. Trivia *Four's fears are heights, confinement (claustrophobia), killing innocent people (symbolized in his fear landscape as having to shoot a woman) and being beaten up by Marcus (his father). However, as said in Insurgent, his fears switched over the course of the trilogy. In Allegiant, it is revealed that the heights and confinement fear remain the same; instead of having to kill a woman, he must watch Tris die, and it is shown that instead of being beaten up by Marcus, he is afraid of turning into his father. *When Tris tells Tobias that he may not be in her fear landscape anymore, he says that everybody could call her Six, referring to her then only having six fears, to which Tris replies, "Four and Six". *In the movie, Four's age has been changed to 24, instead of him being 18. Film Portrayal Summit Entertainment bought the rights to create a film adaptation of the novel. Theo James has been cast as Tobias "Four" Eaton. The film will depict Tobias Eaton as an older instructor by the age of 24 instead of the original 18 in the novels. Links *Which actor would you choose to play Four in the movie? *http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/maggie-q-zoe-kravitz-ansel-427375 Category:Characters Category:Divergent Category:Dauntless Category:Abnegation Category:Divergent Characters Category:Insurgent Characters Category:Males Category:Transfer Category:Leader Category:Allegiant Characters